ABC has renewed two of its prime-time gameshows for second seasons this evening, as Deadline reports that Leslie Jones’ raucous, funny, energetic, and just generally delightful Supermarket Sweep revival will get a second year on the air. Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune has also been renewed.
Based on the same basic premise that powered the original—i.e., that, since basically everybody does grocery shopping, expertise with the show’s subject matter is essentially built in—Supermarket Sweep has been an extremely fun addition to the ABC lineup over the last year. Jones, especially, appears to be enjoying the hell out of herself, even when contestants break her (and our) hearts by not figuring out a very simple riddle about crackers. Also, Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune is a show where famous people (Patton Oswalt, Alfonso Ribiera, Leslie Jones herself, and more) play Wheel Of Fortune.
(Actually, we know we’re halfway through a bit right now where we act like Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune is very boring, but we were doing some research on it and realized Paul Reubens guest-starred back in February; we’re very into the idea of Reubens being vaguely threatening toward Pat Sajak while playing Wheel Of Fortune.)
Both shows performed well for the network earlier this year, with Wheel a surprisingly strong hit among people who really want to watch Tony Hawk play Wheel Of Fortune. Sweep pulled in roughly half those ratings, but remained stable throughout its run.
5 Comments
I can’t find the Absorbine Jr. and my cart is overflowing with watermelons!
My hovercraft is full of eels!
Mijn hovercraft zit vol palingen!
People liked Celebrity Wheel because the celebrities ran roughshod over Pat. They constantly chattered throughout the rounds, interrupted Pat whenever, and some of them had no idea what the rules were. Some of them even chatted directlyn with Vanna during the round. It was also a fun way to groan at celebrities as they struggle to solve the easiest puzzles Wheel has ever had, especially the Bonus Round puzzles, where everyone got them immediately EXCEPT the one actually playing. Here’s hoping they iron out the rules, though. They got rid of all the gimmicks except for the Million Dollars, which had full wedges instead of 1/3 surrounded by Bankrupts and had FOUR on the Wheel. They also had a “solving bonus” for whoever won starting at $5,000 and increasing by another $5,000 every round, meaning whoever won Round 4 automatically got $20,000 in addition to whatever they picked up.Celebrity Wheel would be a great place to bring back the Jackpot round. Just saying.As for Supermarket Sweep, it’s fine, but that show really needs an audience to fill out the background cheering. I also can only take a little Leslie Jones at a time.
It is baffling that Supermarket Sweep isn’t a complete disaster. It’s basically just Leslie Jones doing a YouTube reaction channel about people frantically shopping; somehow I’d rather see somebody fake cry about a movie trailer.